Overpopulation Myths

krsna · May 15, 2008

http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=13087

suchandra · May 15, 2008

Prabhupada: No husband, no children, one dog. Just see. Children—contraceptive. And dog—welcome.

Woman with dog: Good morning.

Prabhupāda: Good morning.

Devotee: Hare Krishna.

Prabhupāda: For children—kill them. This is Kali-yuga. They are killing their own children and patting a dog. Just see how much fallen they are, and they’re passing as civilized. Fourth class. Complaining of overpopulation, and the dog gives birth at a time half a dozen—there is no overpopulation, welcome; we shall maintain them. Huh? They’re giving twice in a year, or once in a, even once in a year, that is no overpopulation. A man gives one or two birth, it is overpopulation. Formerly they are begetting hundred children. At that time there was no complaint of overpopulation. At that time, the description in the history is kāmaṁ vavarṣa parjanyaḥ [SB 1.10.4] On account of good rains, the earth used to produce immense necessities of life. Just like this portion is maintained with sufficient water, there is green everywhere. So if there is sufficient rain, everywhere you can do. Where is the question of overpopulation? [break] …population you work for growing food. No. Some of them are becoming hippies, no work. And some of them are working for manufacturing tire tube, tools, that’s all. Where is food? Still there is food, but they’ll not work for this, for growing food.

Madhudviṣa: They have run one survey…

Prabhupāda: Hm.

Madhudviṣa: …and they have found out that the people of Australia spend so much money on feeding their pets that two hundred thousand people per year could be fed with the money that is used to feed the pets.

Prabhupāda: Just see.

Morning Walk Conversation

with His Divine Grace A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupāda

May 19, 1975, Melbourne

750519mw.mel

Kulapavana · May 15, 2008

I loved the picture you posted, Suchandra-ji

I do think that currently some areas of the world are overpopulated, but the overpopulation is not the biggest problem.

Btw. Prabupada says: "Complaining of overpopulation, and the dog gives birth at a time half a dozen—there is no overpopulation, welcome; we shall maintain them. Huh? They’re giving twice in a year, or once in a, even once in a year, that is no overpopulation."

That is not true. Millions of cats and dogs are euthanized each year in US:

http://members.aol.com/tipoftexk9rescue/PetOverpopulationandOwnershipSt.html

suchandra · May 15, 2008

I loved the picture you posted, Suchandra-ji

I do think that currently some areas of the world are overpopulated, but the overpopulation is not the biggest problem.

Btw. Prabupada says: "Complaining of overpopulation, and the dog gives birth at a time half a dozen—there is no overpopulation, welcome; we shall maintain them. Huh? They’re giving twice in a year, or once in a, even once in a year, that is no overpopulation."

That is not true. Millions of cats and dogs are euthanized each year in US:

http://members.aol.com/tipoftexk9rescue/PetOverpopulationandOwnershipSt.html

Thing is (btw thanks that you liked the pic I posted Kula:rolleyes:):

The sum total--more than

48,000,000

is the number of children aborted in the United States since 1973.

Or the number of children aborted in the world

each year.

Considering the fact that so many children are killed it is quite fair that Prabhupada says, "Children—contraceptive. And dog—welcome", although they might also kill many cats and dogs.

Overpopulation when it comes to varna-sankara, yes, those who create hellish condition in human society, this could be called overpopulated.

Varnasrama and Varna Sankara

2,045 Views / EMail This Post / Print This Post / Home » Varnasrama and Varna Sankara

By Praghosa Dasa

We often remark that in the west death is something that is very much hidden away from day to day life. Aside from the flashing lights of passing ambulances there is little to remind us of inevitable death. Unfortunately the same cannot be said of the ever growing number of youths who menacingly roam the streets of western cities in small to medium size gangs.

Maybe it is because I am getting older and am suffering from misty nostalgia, or perhaps I’m feeling a little more vulnerable to youthful strength, but no, that is not the case, this phenomena is both on the increase as far as frequency goes, as well as the degree of brutality involved.

While generally the youths themselves are menacing enough, when they are accompanied by those dogs that always remind me of the hellish planets, the menace level increases significantly.

With no training, no guidance, poor upbringing and no role models, the pure unadulterated desire to lord it over by brute force appears to be their life mission. And boy do they take to that mission with gusto. Beatings, stabbings and murders are now a daily occurrence in most western cities.

Indeed a new phrase has arisen in the western lexicon “anti-social behaviour” I guess anti-social behaviour is more or less the job description for varna sankara offspring.

Srila Prabhupada defines varna sankara in different ways but one definition he uses again and again is unwanted children. In most western countries these days there are quite a number of unwanted children that don’t generally see the light day, due to a combination of contraception and abortion. I suppose they could be categorised as the absolute unwanted, of course the ‘parents’ of the absolute unwanted are merely making their own unfortunate position in this material world even worse;

In this sinful age of Kali, people have even taken to the process of killing the child in the womb. This is the most degraded practice; it can only perpetuate the miserable material conditions of those who perform it.

SB 5.17.12 purport

Then we have the children who are not planned but are not so unwanted that they are aborted, these children are born both inside of outside of marriage but the statistics (as well as Srila Prabhupada’s comments) suggest that those born outside of marriage are more likely to be a disturbance to society;

If varna-sankara population is increased, then the whole society becomes a hell. That’s a fact. Actually, that is the position at the present moment. Therefore, according to the Vedic system, marriage is there. Without marriage, the population, increase of population, means varna-sankara.

Bg 2.13 Lecture Nov 19th 1972

While the above quote is quite categoric and direct it does get worse. I don’t think there were TV shows during Srila Prabhupada’s time (at least I never heard of them) that were dedicated to people taking paternity tests so the identity of the father could be determined! Recently while visiting my brother in hospital our conversation meandered onto the subject of marriage and how it is the essential building block of a stable society, a concept he was in agreement with. He then went on to reveal how far and how quickly society is moving away from that standard. He informed me of TV shows that are dedicated to the subject of paternity testing and what’s more, there are an unlimited number of people who need such paternity tests. What this means of course is that married or not, the mother is sleeping with multiple partners, but regardless of whether there were TV shows during Prabhupada’s time on this subject, Prabhupada did cover this issue of paternity;

Varna-sankara population means a population who cannot say who is his father

SB Lecture 1.16.12 9th January 1974

So a quick recap:

varna sankara take 1 – Children born in stable monogamous marriages but were not fully planned

varna sankara take 2 – Unplanned children born outside of marriage

varna sankara take 3 – Unplanned children not only born out of marriage but born to a mother who is not able to pinpoint who the father is.

There is also a hybrid of 1 and 2 above wherein the child is conceived outside of marriage but the parents marry before the child is born. In the west this is known as a ’shotgun wedding’? A shotgun wedding being a wedding that takes place quickly (shotgun) due to the ‘bride’ getting pregnant by ‘mistake’. Traditionally the main reason for a shotgun wedding was to legitimise the relationship between the man and woman involved, as well as making sure the future child was not considered a second class citizen. In many Catholic countries a child born out of wedlock was denied a series of sacraments that would undermine its chances of achieving salvation according to Catholic theology. So the shotgun wedding solved this problem but regardless of such after-thoughts and arrangements, unplanned children remain varna sankara and are likely to be a disturbance to one degree or another;

To check the increase of demoniac population, the Vedic civilization enacted so many rules and regulations of social life, the most important of which is the garbhadhana process for be getting good children.

SB 3.17.15

Still, while such shotgun weddings may not be ideal, when compared to the need for paternity testing they take on a much more glorious status, such a reality only confirms the relentless march of kali yuga;

…in this age, Kali-yuga, dam-patye ‘bhirucir hetuh: the relationship between husband and wife will be based on sexual power. Therefore householder life in this Kali-yuga is extremely dangerous unless both the wife and husband take to Krsna consciousness.

SB 6.18.40 purport

As devotees of Krsna and followers of Srila Prabhupada our prime duty will always be to spread the glories of the holy name as far and wide as possible and indeed that alone will have a huge impact on the unlimited negative influences of the age of kali. However it is clear that as well as engaging in sravanam and kirtanam we also have a duty to live our lives in as dharmic a way as possible. To underline this Srila Prabhupada often made the link between varna sankara and the lack of varnasrama;

Formerly, the principle of dividing human society into four sections—brahmana, ksatriya, vaisya and sudra—was strictly followed, but because of gradual neglect of the varnasrama principles, varna-sankara population developed, and the entire institution has now been lost. In this age of Kali, practically everyone is a sudra (kalau sudra-sambhavah), and finding anyone who is a brahmana, ksatriya or vaisya is very difficult. Although the Krsna consciousness movement is a movement of brahmanas and Vaisnavas, it is trying to re-establish the divine varnasrama institution, for without this division of society there cannot be peace and prosperity anywhere.

SB 7.11.18-20 purport

Of course we cannot have varnasrama without having ’simple living and high thinking’. High thinking is something that comes naturally to devotees but simple living is more of a struggle for the vast majority of us. So perhaps an additional impetus for us to embrace simple living might be the thought that if we don’t we are likely adding to the grave problem of an increase in the varna sankara population.

…as stated in Bhagavad-gita, an increase of varna-sankara population creates a hellish society. This is the society in which Americans now find themselves.

SB 6.7.12 Purport

Kulapavana · May 15, 2008

Overpopulation is not a myth, nor is it true that "there is no overpopulation".

1. All biological systems can grow to the point of "overpopulation", or numbers which the environment is unable to support.

2. There are currently areas of the world (especially in Africa, but also in Asia and Caribbean) where the growth of the local population exceeds the ability of the environment to support it in a sustainable fashion. Importing food from distant countries is not a sustainable practice.

krsna · May 15, 2008

Three myths about world hunger

What do you do when someone comes out with a well-intentioned but misguided comment about the starving? You can sit in silence, fuming. Or you can do your best to help them understand the forces that leave people hungry.

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Myth one:

OVERPOPULATION

Actually there is plenty of food in the world. Production of cereals (wheat, rice, millet etc) last year reached 1799.2 million tons, enough to offer everyone in the world well over the recommended minimum of 2.500 calories per adult per day. And that is before you’ve even begun to count the calories in vegetables, nuts, pulses, root crops and grass-fed (as opposed to grain-fed) meat.

So what’s the problem?

The problem is the distribution of that food, both within countries and between rich and poor worlds. People like us in the developed nations eat much more than we need.

Americans represent only six per cent of the world’s population, yet they consume 35 per cent of the world’s resources - the same as the entire developing world. So is the real world population problem that there are too many Americans?

But Western countries have enough land to support their populations - Third World countries don’t.

Western countries have enough money to support their populations. There’s little relationship between hunger and the availability of land. Holland has 1.117 people per square mile and Bolivia (just 12, yet the Dutch are one of the best-fed people in the world and the Bolivian poor among the world’s most undernourished. We think of India as overpopulated yet it has 568 people per square mile, less than Britain’s 583. And Africa may have the world’s greatest food problem - but it isn’t for the lack of land. At the moment only a quarter of Africa’s potential arable land is being cultivated.

But doesn’t Africa have the world’s fastest population growth?

Yes, and no one is saying they shouldn’t be concerned about that. Contraception should be freely available to everyone who wants it. But people are only likely to use it when their poverty is relieved. When one in four children dies and more hands are needed to help in the fields, children become an economic necessity. The rich world’s population growth slowed when standards of living improved - before the advent of reliable contraception.

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Myth two:

THE WEATHER

The weather does not cause famines - people do. Earthquakes and floods, droughts and cyclones may be ‘natural disasters’ but humans decide who will suffer from them. When the recent cyclone hit Bangladesh, for instance, it was only the poor that died. Only the poor were desperate enough for land to make the dangerous move onto the new islands that appear every year in the Bay of Bengal. Red Cross statistics show that, in high-income countries, the number of people killed per disaster is under ten per cent of that killed in low-income countries.

That’s all very well, but people are dying in Africa now because it hasn’t rained.

No. they’re dying because they’re poor. Farmers starved in US droughts in the 189Os and 1910 but they don’t starve when drought hits now; Saudi Arabia has greened part of its desert to make itself self-sufficient in wheat. So it is clearly money that counts.

The climate in Africa may be changing - we don’t know yet. But what we do know is that more people are dying in droughts than ever before - an average of 23,110 people per year died in droughts in the 1970s. compared with only 1,010 per year in the 1960s.

This is partly explained by the increased frequency of droughts - the number grew from 5.2 droughts per year in the world in the 1 960s to 9.7 per year in the 1 970s. But the reason so many more die in each drought is that people are being pushed into poverty - the weather simply tips them over the brink.

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Myth Three:

SCIENCE

We’d all like to think that scientific progress could cure our ills. And solving the world’s food problem might seem easy compared with sending rockets to Venus.

But science’s solution to global hunger – the Green Revolution – has been no solution at all. In fact in some places it has made the gulf between rich and poor wider.

How can that be? The Green Revolution introduced seeds that yielded bigger crops

Yes, but high-yield seeds only work if they’re in laboratory-like conditions. They need artificial fertilizer and an irrigation system that’s beyond the means of a small farmer.

Even so, more food is grown and that must be good for everyone.

Not necessarily. Take two farmers one with barely enough land to eke out a living, while the other is rich in land and capital. Both are persuaded of the value of high-yield seeds. But the first has no money for the fertilizer the new seeds need, and is too poor for the bank to offer a loan. So while the large farmer has a bumper harvest, the small one grows the same of less than usual – and has to sell at a lower price due to the market glut. Eventually the poor farmer will have to sell out to the rich to make ends meet.

A neat story, but you can’t deny that science has turned down India from a basket-case into a country that can feed itself.

It’s true that India, once the symbol of famine, is now a net food exporter. And that must be good – it has been freed from the draining indignity of food aid and imports. But no-one would deny that poor Indians are still hungry. When new agricultural techniques are injected into an unequal society then the gap between rich and poor widens – even is more food is grown.

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Bishadi · May 15, 2008

Based on a priorities.

Prabhupada: No husband, no children, one dog. Just see. Children—contraceptive. And dog—welcome

Women comes to ‘see’ with personal companion (dog);not of a system to procreate, (huby/child)…. But to see (understand)

Prabhupāda: For children—kill them. This is Kali-yuga.

Period of the self; not life. Time of personal needs; kali-yuga.

They are killing their own children and patting a dog. Just see how much fallen they are, and they’re passing as civilized. Fourth class.

the choice of the self is less than ‘good’ (to support life). A judgment within the wisdom of words.

Complaining of overpopulation, and the dog gives birth at a time half a dozen—there is no overpopulation, welcome; we shall maintain them. Huh?

The choice of the self, still with no child but with many more for things for the self.

They’re giving twice in a year, or once in a, even once in a year, that is no overpopulation. A man gives one or two birth, it is overpopulation. Formerly they are begetting hundred children. At that time there was no complaint of overpopulation. At that time, the description in the history is kāmaṁ vavarṣa parjanyaḥ [SB 1.10.4]

Then life was of purpose to continue; today is occupied by things (dog) many times over.

On account of good rains, the earth used to produce immense necessities of life. Just like this portion is maintained with sufficient water, there is green everywhere. So if there is sufficient rain, everywhere you can do. Where is the question of overpopulation? [break] …population you work for growing food. No. Some of them are becoming hippies, no work. And some of them are working for manufacturing tire tube, tools, that’s all. Where is food? Still there is food, but they’ll not work for this, for growing food.

need any more be said?